In Journeying in the Wilderness, author Terri Martinson Elton observes that faith formation in the church setting is contextual, and multiple forces are coming together today to create seismic contextual changes at record speed. These changes are disrupting aspects of our lives, challenging assumptions, and dislodging personal and communal practices. For the church to take seriously its call to form faith in each generation, it must be attentive to current contextual realities. Elton places confessional understanding of faith in dialogue with five contextually altering forces in order to provide a pathway for congregations to reimagine faith formation in the midst of twenty-first-century realities. The use of stories, nontechnical language, and biblical perspectives make this work accessible for congregational leaders and others who seek to explore new directions in forming faith. Processes and practices are offered to help both leaders and congregations contextualize their approach to their particular settings. Each chapter includes leadership competencies, shared practices, and group discussion questions.

Increasingly, many Christians and spiritual seekers feel they are in a sort of wilderness space where the familiar, settled, and normal parts of life have become unsettled, out of balance. More and more people are evaluating their lives and asking, Where to now? In Life Unsettled, Cory Driver uses the metaphor of wilderness journeying (a hallmark of the life of faith across the millennia) and the study of biblical texts, ancient Jewish legends, modern theological insights, and his own personal journeys to provide a guide for moving forward when we feel lost and confused. The biblical book of Numbers takes center stage in the author's creative musings about life in the wilderness. The Hebrew title of Numbers is Bemidbar, which means In the Wilderness. In this oft-overlooked book are stories of God's passionate intimacy and anger, communal formation and struggles, and personal failures and triumphs. The author shows how the wilderness journey in Numbers has a deep relevance for our time and for our personal journeys. The book includes a discussion guide ideal for group use.

"The book has a double value in the text of the author and the annotation by the editor. The author adds to . . . our knowledge of the peninsula warfare and gives probably the best extant account of operations in the north central region of Florida and in southern Georgia."-Journal of Southern History "The reader gets a good feeling of what campaigning in Florida meant to one used to the comforts of Charleston and Cambridge. . . . Lively, humorous, and very easy to read. In style the book is far above most descriptions of the Seminole Wars written by participants."-Florida Historical Quarterly In 1836, 24-year-old Jacob Rhett Motte, a Harvard-educated southern gentleman with a literary flair, departed his hometown of Charleston to serve as an Army surgeon in wars against the Creek and Seminole Indians. He found himself transported from aristocratic social circles into a wild frontier. Motte recorded his experiences in a lively journal, presented in full in Journey into Wilderness. In his journal, Motte relates observations of Indian warfare from southern Georgia and eastern Alabama to Key Largo in Florida. He reports his impressions of pioneer settlements, military fortifications, towns, roads, frontier life and society, and geography. His journal also offers glimpses of the economic, political, and religious trends of the time. A fascinating story and travelogue, it is a rare firsthand account of life on the Georgia-Alabama-Florida frontier.

The stirring memoir of one man's harrowing solo adventure in the Alaskan wilderness, and his discoveries about the home he leaves behind. 'This is the best wilderness narrative I've read for a long time. The tension between nature at its most exquisite and most lethal makes this the story of our times. A remarkable book' Nicholas Crane, TV presenter and author of Coast In the spring of 2007, hard on the heels of the worst winter in the history of Juneau, Alaska, Lynn Schooler finds himself facing the far side of middle age and exhausted by labouring to handcraft a home as his marriage slips away. Seeking solace and escape in nature, he sets out on a solo journey into the Alaskan wilderness, travelling first by small boat across the formidable Gulf of Alaska, then on foot along one of the wildest coastlines in North America. Walking Home is filled with stunning observations of the natural world, and rife with nail-biting adventure as Schooler fords swollen rivers and eludes aggressive grizzlies. But more important, it is a story about finding wholeness-and a sense of humanity-in the wild. His is a solitary journey, but Schooler is never alone; human stories people the landscape-tales of trappers, explorers, marooned sailors, and hermits, as well as the mythology of the region's Tlingit Indians. Alone in the middle of several thousand square miles of wilderness, Schooler conjures the souls of travellers past to learn how the trials of life may be better borne with the help and community of others. In Walking Home Schooler creates a conversation between the human and the natural, the past and present, and investigates, with elegance and soul, what it means to be a part of the flow of human history.

For every day from Shrove Tuesday to Easter Day, the bestselling poet Malcolm Guite chooses a favourite poem from across the Christian spiritual and English literary traditions and offers incisive reflections on it. A scholar of poetry and a renowned poet himself, his knowledge is deep and wide and he offers readers a soul-food feast for Lent.

In a day when most religious leaders were known for their efforts to discredit the ministry of Jesus, there came one who earnestly sought Him. In a day when most religious leaders mocked Jesus as He hung on a cross, there came one who meekly helped bury His body. And in a day when most religious leaders felt threatened by Jesus, there came one who courageously chose to take a stand for Him.This is the story of a teacher called Nicodemus who God used to teach what it means to seek God, not only in word, but also in deed. Just as his life was a testimony to the people of his day, it remains an example to us today.There is an adage that says, "if you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything." Nicodemus was a humble man who willingly stood boldly for truth. Explore his story through this novella - the portion you may already know, and the rest of the story that could have been.

Introducing new reprints by and about Bishop James Pike: The Other Side Search Search is the complete story of how Bishop James A. Pike disappeared in the Judean wilderness in 1969 while pursuing his interest in the historical Jesus. His was a lifelong search for truth, and his interest in the new light cast by the Dead Sea Scrolls had caused him to reexamine who Jesus was in the context of the times in which he lived. Bishop Pike and his wife of eight months, the author of this account, wanted a direct experience of the Judean wilderness in which Jesus had fasted and meditated for forty days and nights. They drove their rented car on a little-used road and, after getting stuck, tried to walk to the caves at Qumran. Emotion radiates from every page of this swiftly paced, unsparingly honest and revealing accountÑa narrative that will make you not only identify and understand how it all could have happened, but also feel as if you were there yourself andÑprobablyÑwould have acted as the Pikes did. The story of Search is tragic, but the author has a faith in God and in an afterlife that makes it possible for her to conclude her narrative by stating that she knows that ÒJim is alive and so am I.

"Muir's writings of his travels through some of the greatest landscapes on Earth, including the Carolinas, Florida, Alaska and those lands which were to become the great National Parks of Yosemite and the Sierra Valley, raise an awareness of nature to a spiritual dimension. These journals provide a marriage of scientific survey and natural history."--Publisher.